5 NBA Advanced Stats to Help Your Daily Fantasy Basketball Lineups

David Gonos 05:44 pm, November 25th, 2016

Over the past decade or so, the sports world has begun seeing the advantages of using advanced stats, especially in baseball. Fantasy Sports players, specifically, have seen plenty of advantages, too, since they could start seeing good players that just need opportunities.

Fantasy Basketball players now have several different types of advanced stats, or at least, untapped stats that we haven’t really used dating back to the days of Michael Jordan and Co.

So we’re going to introduce you to a handful of NBA advanced stats that will help you not only in your seasonal Fantasy Basketball leagues, but with your Daily fantasy Basketball lineups on sites like FanDuel and DraftKings.

5 NBA Advanced Stats for Daily Fantasy Basketball Players

For Daily Fantasy Basketball players, advanced stats are even more useful because you have a chance to use different players in different lineups every single night, as opposed to traditional draft-and-keep players. Most of these stats can be found on ESPN.com.

Player Efficiency Rating (PER)

ESPN’s John Hollinger developed PER, and it has become universally used at this point as basketball’s equivalent to WAR in baseball, but it’s not really as all-encompassing.

PER measures how productive a player is per minute of play during a game. It adds up both the good things and the bad things each player does when he’s on the court, with the team’s pace and the player’s playing time considered.

Unfortunately, blocks and steals are a small picture of what a great defender can do, so really good defensive players don’t get the credit they should in PER.

Jimmy Butler Photo Credit: Victor Decolongon, Getty Images

NBA Team Possessions Per Game

Team Possessions shows how many different offensive possessions a team averages per game, which is a good indicator of scoring opportunities.

If you find a high-ranked team in “Team Possessions” facing a low-ranking team, then that’s something you have to consider in DFS. Their upcoming game will likely split the amount of team possessions, meaning the high-ranked team will likely have a lower amount of possessions, and the low-ranked team will probably have more possessions than usual.

That’s a DFS opportunity to exploit.

Take one of the top players from that lower-ranked team, and now you have a player at a price determined by his team’s normal pace and his normal output. But he should deliver a better value because he should see more scoring opportunities, more chances for assists and rebounds, too.

Eric Bledsoe Photo Credit: Jesse D. Garrabrant, Getty Images

Offensive/Defensive Efficiency

This stat breaks down the numbers by both offense and defense for each team. A team could score 100.0 points per game, which would make them a top-10 NBA offense, but they might be second or third in Offensive Efficiency. (NBA.com uses Offensive/Defensive Rating, which is similar, based on points scored per 100 possessions by a team.) That’s an indicator of an offense that has the second- or third-best offense per possession in the NBA.

You can look at a team’s Defensive Efficiency to determine how good they are at slowing opposing offenses down on a per possession basis.

J.J. Redick Photo Credit: Rocky Widner, Getty Images

Rebound Rate

This statistic is helpful for looking at both power forwards and centers, as opposed to all the other advanced stats that seems to suit just perimeter players and players that drive the lane.

A player’s Rebound Rate will help you understand the percentage of available rebounds a player has a chance to grab each night. It divides offensive and defensive board rates, as well as adjusting for pace, and minutes played. It’s much more effective when you compare it to just rebounds per game.

Dwight Howard Photo Credit: Ron Hoskins, Getty Images

True Shooting Percentage

The standard field-goal percentage is not indicative of what a pure shooter can do. For instance, a long-range bomber that takes much tougher shots is usually ranked below a low-post player whose usually scoring much closer to the basket on put-backs and slam dunks. This stat takes into account three-pointers, two-pointers and one-pointers (free throws!) in a smart formula.

When players suddenly get a chance to start or they’re expected to get more minutes, it’s good to check out their True Shooting Percentage to get an idea of just how much they’ll be able to take advantage of opportunities.

Player Efficiency Rating (PER)

ESPN’s John Hollinger developed PER, and it has become universally used at this point as basketball’s equivalent to WAR in baseball, but it’s not really as all-encompassing.

PER measures how productive a player is per minute of play during a game. It adds up both the good things and the bad things each player does when he’s on the court, with the team’s pace and the player’s playing time considered.

Unfortunately, blocks and steals are a small picture of what a great defender can do, so really good defensive players don’t get the credit they should in PER.

Jimmy Butler Photo Credit: Victor Decolongon, Getty Images

2/5

NBA Team Possessions Per Game

Team Possessions shows how many different offensive possessions a team averages per game, which is a good indicator of scoring opportunities.

If you find a high-ranked team in “Team Possessions” facing a low-ranking team, then that’s something you have to consider in DFS. Their upcoming game will likely split the amount of team possessions, meaning the high-ranked team will likely have a lower amount of possessions, and the low-ranked team will probably have more possessions than usual.

That’s a DFS opportunity to exploit.

Take one of the top players from that lower-ranked team, and now you have a player at a price determined by his team’s normal pace and his normal output. But he should deliver a better value because he should see more scoring opportunities, more chances for assists and rebounds, too.

Eric Bledsoe Photo Credit: Jesse D. Garrabrant, Getty Images

3/5

Offensive/Defensive Efficiency

This stat breaks down the numbers by both offense and defense for each team. A team could score 100.0 points per game, which would make them a top-10 NBA offense, but they might be second or third in Offensive Efficiency. (NBA.com uses Offensive/Defensive Rating, which is similar, based on points scored per 100 possessions by a team.) That’s an indicator of an offense that has the second- or third-best offense per possession in the NBA.

You can look at a team’s Defensive Efficiency to determine how good they are at slowing opposing offenses down on a per possession basis.

J.J. Redick Photo Credit: Rocky Widner, Getty Images

4/5

Rebound Rate

This statistic is helpful for looking at both power forwards and centers, as opposed to all the other advanced stats that seems to suit just perimeter players and players that drive the lane.

A player’s Rebound Rate will help you understand the percentage of available rebounds a player has a chance to grab each night. It divides offensive and defensive board rates, as well as adjusting for pace, and minutes played. It’s much more effective when you compare it to just rebounds per game.

Dwight Howard Photo Credit: Ron Hoskins, Getty Images

5/5

True Shooting Percentage

The standard field-goal percentage is not indicative of what a pure shooter can do. For instance, a long-range bomber that takes much tougher shots is usually ranked below a low-post player whose usually scoring much closer to the basket on put-backs and slam dunks. This stat takes into account three-pointers, two-pointers and one-pointers (free throws!) in a smart formula.

When players suddenly get a chance to start or they’re expected to get more minutes, it’s good to check out their True Shooting Percentage to get an idea of just how much they’ll be able to take advantage of opportunities.